Field
This invention relates generally to media, and more specifically, to a method to play content among multiple devices.
Related Art
Consuming digital media content such as an electronic book, a digital video, an on-line video, or a digital document is becoming easier. A user can watch a television show through Netflix® on her networked television set, her laptop, her tablet or her smartphone. The user can do so any time anywhere, and as many times as she desires. Another user can read a book on his Kindle e-reader, and later continues the reading on a Kindle tablet, or a Kindle e-reader software running on his Android™ phone.
Even when a user finds convenience to consume or play a digital content on multiple devices, the experience is not as desired. Mary finished reading the e-book Hunger Game volume 1 last year on her Kindle®. Her younger sister, Liz, becomes interested in the book and wants to read it. Liz received a Kindle Fire as a gift from her father last week. She logs into the family Kindle account and finds the e-book. When Liz loads and opens the e-book. Kindle Fire opens the book at the last page of the book, where Mary last read the book a year ago. Liz has to flip back to the beginning of the book.
John and Susan have a family subscription to an online video service. They both like the TV series Breaking Bad. John watched episode 5 last night on his tablet and stopped at about 15 minute into the video. Susan turned on their television in the morning and watched the same episode. She found the video was played starting midway. She realized John must have watched part of it earlier. She rewound to the beginning of the video and finished watching the video. During lunch time, John wants to continue watching. He turns on his iPhone® and starts the video. To his surprise, the video does not resume from where he left off. The video application indicates the video has reached the end and needs to start playing from the beginning. John forgets where he stopped last night and is irritated that he has to start all over again.
Maryann reads an online newspaper every day. Now she bought a second tablet to be used in her bedroom, she would resume reading some news articles she started earlier that morning on her older tablet, before turning off the light for the night. In the morning, when she turns on the older tablet, she finds it odd when the online newspaper starts on the news article she did not complete the day earlier. She expected the online newspaper to start with today's news.
The above scenarios illustrate the need for improved playing of media content over multiple devices. The timeliness of the content and which devices are used are important aspects of the user experience.